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Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Roasters: Caffe Pronto

Located in some industrial area to house their craft - coffee roasting, this bunch of coffee geeks makes you feel at home. As you drive up to their roastery, it's serene chills go through you - because you've reach the home of the 2011 National Brewers Cup champion Andy Sprenger.
To make this visit more exciting, we'd get a personal tour of the grounds and a peek into their laboratory.....

Making notes was impossible but staring was for free. As you step into their on-site roastery it's huge considering all things roasted. High ceilings, extra storage space - which needs it's own forklifts was slowly acquired from the former neighbours. Extra office spaces give way to their sensory laboratory, and offices. Inside their lab, they host weekly coffee cuppings for the community, along with training and fine-tuning their roast quality. We were privy to have the new Kone 2.0 on site in early May, and Andy went to town brewing his first attempt in our presence. (Video to come)

He and Sammy were having a great discussion about whether Sammy should be heading to Bogota, San Deigo or Maastricht.
Also a great opportunity to talk shop, and decide about which Ethiopian Coffee they would be bringing over to NL. the Kochere Yirgacheffe with better beans would be the choice.
Andy brewed up the last of his competition roast, and it was delicious.

Verdict: Rich body of cocoa, with a smooth mouthfeel similar to melting butter spreading on roasted corn. Sweet molasses finishes the sip.

From the Roasters:Sweet Cheeks Espresso Blend was developed to create a profile that is big in body, extremely sweet, syrupy in mouthfeel and soft on acidity.
Properly extracted, Sweet Cheeks will provide a heavy bodied espresso, with both sweet and dark chocolate notes, and a sweet almond presence in both the aroma and in the cup. The finish is clean and leaves a mellow, lingering sweetness.

May your cheeks be happy.

Great final destination on the DC/ MD Espressso Advenutres tour.

Thanks to Samuel from Keffa Coffee. (next week, we profile Keffa, and get our butts back to NYC)